A Refashioned Maternity Blouse
In Which I Tear Apart a Perfectly Good Shirt and Make It Into A New Garment, The Efficacy and Fashion of Which Still Remains to be Seen.
Full disclosure, guys - I am only three months pregnant right now and pretty much the only changes I've made in my wardrobe have involved giving up my favorite pairs of jeans. (These are the first things you become unable to fasten. And it happens faster than you think.) But since I am nothing if not a Type A planner, I've already begun collecting maternity clothing to wear later on and working to modify a few existing pieces in my wardrobe, even if they aren't really suited to my figure just yet.
If you read my post back in January about sustainable fashion in 2020, you will recall that I made a resolution this year not to purchase any new piece of clothing. At the time, yes, we had plans and hopes for a baby this year, and maternity and baby clothing was in the back of my mind all along! I'm excited to share some of the projects I've planned with you, and to even post about some of the purchases I've made at thrift stores if anyone is interested in that (let me know in the comments!).
This blouse started out as an Office Casual piece. (Yes, I categorize my clothes... mentally, at least. I'm not organized enough to do it within my closet. I've made grand plans in the past, and some halfhearted attempts, but I always end up just sticking hangers wherever there's room.) I think I bought it in 2014, and yes, it was thrifted even then! I didn't start working in an office full-time until 2015, but I wore it pretty frequently back then, and I wore it up until last year too. It was never really my favorite top though, as it's a tiny bit shapeless, and I prefer my blouses to have a more tailored look. (If it's going to button down the front, it could at least use some DARTS.)
But it seemed like the perfect candidate to cut up and restyle, because if I failed, it was no great loss, right? Plus, it had a decent amount of wear left in it, so I decided it couldn't hurt to try.
Here's the "before" version...
It took a really long time to seam-rip the side seams; a good bit longer than I was expecting, in fact. Serged seams hold up very well! But I was determined, and eventually all those little bits of thread gave up the ghost. I opened the seams from the hem all the way to the armscye. This enabled me to add more width to the blouse from the midriff all the way up to the bust line. And yes, I forgot to take a picture of this part of the process. Oops.
I used this photo as an inspiration for expanding the sides of the blouse. I had stretch lace available in my fabric stash, but I wanted the sides to still be opaque. (In retrospect, since I will probably still wear a cami under the blouse in the summertime, the lacy part could have been transparent, but oh well.) I took an old t-shirt to use for the base of the expansion.
This is the original t-shirt.
It was definitely sad to cut it up, but the back piece gave me an excellent knit fabric source, and I might still be able to save the front for something else. (Ideas?) I bought this shirt on Etsy in 2014, and it has a weird green stain on the front now (hard to see in the photo, but visible in real life and natural light), plus it was always a little on the snug side. I'm glad it gets to be repurposed at least a little bit!
So, I measured the slits I had just opened up in the blouse, cut out triangles to fit from the t-shirt fabric, and then cut slightly larger triangles out of a stretch lace fabric.
This definitely could have been machine sewn, but I chose to hand sew in order to watch TV at the same time. Priorities, y'all. It also enabled me to sew while we watched our church's livestreamed services at home during last Sunday's quarantine, which may shock some of you, but having something to keep my hands busy actually helps my mind to focus! I've often wanted to be able to do it in college classrooms, but most professors frown on such activities during lectures (understandably).
I didn't actually time the amount spent sewing the sides, but it was probably something like 3.5 hours, all told. I went slowly, to make sure I didn't stretch the material out of shape, and did a lot of extra reinforcement at the armscye because I didn't want the narrowest point of the triangle to rip out.
Because I have broad shoulders, I've always felt that the long, boxy sleeves on this shirt didn't look great on me. This was a good opportunity to refashion the sleeves. Basically, I chopped off the bottoms. There is no accompanying picture because you can probably just imagine how that would look. This shortened the sleeves to elbow length, and I added a little bit of ribbon trim around the new hems. I might end up removing this later - it wasn't as easy to machine-stitch neatly as I had hoped. (Yes, I did this part and this part only on the machine. I got tired of hand sewing and had finally just set up my sewing machine after our move, so it needed to be used!)
The finished project. It looks rather baggy and too-big on me right now, to be honest, so I'm not modelling it here. Hopefully I'll be able to make a nice skirt to go with it eventually and can take photos of that (although I have several very cute hand-me-down maternity skirts waiting to be used!) or, if I'm really feeling daring, a maternity version of the cigarette pants from Gertie Sews Vintage Casual, (a Christmas gift from my best friend!) which I've been dying to try. This would be a brave attempt indeed, since I haven't even made a regular pair of those pants. We shall see.
I considered adding a ruffle around the hem to lengthen it a bit, but decided against that. I may like vintage clothes from the 50's and 60's very much, but the "babydoll" maternity styles are a notable exception. (One need not LOOK like a baby while building one.) Ruffles aren't super common in 1950's maternity blouses, but that was what the concept suggested to me. (Consider this top on Lucille Ball, for instance. Yikes.)
I've also considered shortening the sleeves a bit to try and get a puffed sleeve effect, but I'm concerned there is not enough fabric for that. It could be cute, though!
Total cost: well, kinda sorta $0, since I used already existing clothing and some fabric that had been in my stash so long, I don't remember where I got it! Thumbs up for stash-busting.
Time spent: 5-6 hours, total. Could have been less if I had used my machine, but I enjoyed the busy-work.
My satisfaction rating: Hard to estimate since I haven't really worn it yet, but probably 3.5 out of 5 stars. It's not perfect, and I'm a little concerned it still might not be long enough for comfortable coverage once I get bigger (hence the aforementioned cami) but time will tell. I'll come back and update this if it ends up being 5 stars.
Full disclosure, guys - I am only three months pregnant right now and pretty much the only changes I've made in my wardrobe have involved giving up my favorite pairs of jeans. (These are the first things you become unable to fasten. And it happens faster than you think.) But since I am nothing if not a Type A planner, I've already begun collecting maternity clothing to wear later on and working to modify a few existing pieces in my wardrobe, even if they aren't really suited to my figure just yet.
If you read my post back in January about sustainable fashion in 2020, you will recall that I made a resolution this year not to purchase any new piece of clothing. At the time, yes, we had plans and hopes for a baby this year, and maternity and baby clothing was in the back of my mind all along! I'm excited to share some of the projects I've planned with you, and to even post about some of the purchases I've made at thrift stores if anyone is interested in that (let me know in the comments!).
This blouse started out as an Office Casual piece. (Yes, I categorize my clothes... mentally, at least. I'm not organized enough to do it within my closet. I've made grand plans in the past, and some halfhearted attempts, but I always end up just sticking hangers wherever there's room.) I think I bought it in 2014, and yes, it was thrifted even then! I didn't start working in an office full-time until 2015, but I wore it pretty frequently back then, and I wore it up until last year too. It was never really my favorite top though, as it's a tiny bit shapeless, and I prefer my blouses to have a more tailored look. (If it's going to button down the front, it could at least use some DARTS.)
But it seemed like the perfect candidate to cut up and restyle, because if I failed, it was no great loss, right? Plus, it had a decent amount of wear left in it, so I decided it couldn't hurt to try.
Here's the "before" version...
It took a really long time to seam-rip the side seams; a good bit longer than I was expecting, in fact. Serged seams hold up very well! But I was determined, and eventually all those little bits of thread gave up the ghost. I opened the seams from the hem all the way to the armscye. This enabled me to add more width to the blouse from the midriff all the way up to the bust line. And yes, I forgot to take a picture of this part of the process. Oops.
I used this photo as an inspiration for expanding the sides of the blouse. I had stretch lace available in my fabric stash, but I wanted the sides to still be opaque. (In retrospect, since I will probably still wear a cami under the blouse in the summertime, the lacy part could have been transparent, but oh well.) I took an old t-shirt to use for the base of the expansion.
This is the original t-shirt.
It was definitely sad to cut it up, but the back piece gave me an excellent knit fabric source, and I might still be able to save the front for something else. (Ideas?) I bought this shirt on Etsy in 2014, and it has a weird green stain on the front now (hard to see in the photo, but visible in real life and natural light), plus it was always a little on the snug side. I'm glad it gets to be repurposed at least a little bit!
So, I measured the slits I had just opened up in the blouse, cut out triangles to fit from the t-shirt fabric, and then cut slightly larger triangles out of a stretch lace fabric.
This definitely could have been machine sewn, but I chose to hand sew in order to watch TV at the same time. Priorities, y'all. It also enabled me to sew while we watched our church's livestreamed services at home during last Sunday's quarantine, which may shock some of you, but having something to keep my hands busy actually helps my mind to focus! I've often wanted to be able to do it in college classrooms, but most professors frown on such activities during lectures (understandably).
I didn't actually time the amount spent sewing the sides, but it was probably something like 3.5 hours, all told. I went slowly, to make sure I didn't stretch the material out of shape, and did a lot of extra reinforcement at the armscye because I didn't want the narrowest point of the triangle to rip out.
Because I have broad shoulders, I've always felt that the long, boxy sleeves on this shirt didn't look great on me. This was a good opportunity to refashion the sleeves. Basically, I chopped off the bottoms. There is no accompanying picture because you can probably just imagine how that would look. This shortened the sleeves to elbow length, and I added a little bit of ribbon trim around the new hems. I might end up removing this later - it wasn't as easy to machine-stitch neatly as I had hoped. (Yes, I did this part and this part only on the machine. I got tired of hand sewing and had finally just set up my sewing machine after our move, so it needed to be used!)
The finished project. It looks rather baggy and too-big on me right now, to be honest, so I'm not modelling it here. Hopefully I'll be able to make a nice skirt to go with it eventually and can take photos of that (although I have several very cute hand-me-down maternity skirts waiting to be used!) or, if I'm really feeling daring, a maternity version of the cigarette pants from Gertie Sews Vintage Casual, (a Christmas gift from my best friend!) which I've been dying to try. This would be a brave attempt indeed, since I haven't even made a regular pair of those pants. We shall see.
I considered adding a ruffle around the hem to lengthen it a bit, but decided against that. I may like vintage clothes from the 50's and 60's very much, but the "babydoll" maternity styles are a notable exception. (One need not LOOK like a baby while building one.) Ruffles aren't super common in 1950's maternity blouses, but that was what the concept suggested to me. (Consider this top on Lucille Ball, for instance. Yikes.)
I've also considered shortening the sleeves a bit to try and get a puffed sleeve effect, but I'm concerned there is not enough fabric for that. It could be cute, though!
Total cost: well, kinda sorta $0, since I used already existing clothing and some fabric that had been in my stash so long, I don't remember where I got it! Thumbs up for stash-busting.
Time spent: 5-6 hours, total. Could have been less if I had used my machine, but I enjoyed the busy-work.
My satisfaction rating: Hard to estimate since I haven't really worn it yet, but probably 3.5 out of 5 stars. It's not perfect, and I'm a little concerned it still might not be long enough for comfortable coverage once I get bigger (hence the aforementioned cami) but time will tell. I'll come back and update this if it ends up being 5 stars.
So, pretty, Miss Woodhouse!! Great job!
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